Christmas 2011 (Calvin Cleans Out!)

Since the new house has lots of room, and Phil's parents sold their house in the city, both Christmases were at our house this year. My family had slept over so we could be up early to open presents. The fireplace we have is gas and doesn't really have anywhere to hang stockings, so we had to get a little creative. Phil found some stretchy cord things in the garage with hooks so we hung our stockings from the stairs. Mandy and Calvin are having some laughs in the middle of a tickle-fest.

Every year we always say we're not going to buy too many presents, but somehow we end up with tons of presents under the tree. It probably doesn't help now that we have the 2 babies - Calvin and Maddy. You just can't help buying presents for them. Although it should be noted that all the presents on the right side of the tree were for Christmas later that night with Phil's family. Calvin looks very overwhelmed by all the presents - either that or plotting which one he can open first. He was actually pretty good, and only managed to rip open 1 present the whole month leading up to Christmas and it was for him anyway.

Phil is helping the little ones go through their stockings. Maddy looks very interested in whatever Phil is holding.

Calvin got a book called "Calvin Can't Fly". As soon as he opened it him and Maddy got to work reading through it together.

One of the bigger presents was this pop-up princess tent that my mom got for Maddy. An empty tent - so simple and yet sure to provide entertainment for hours.

Even Calvin wanted to play inside.

One of Maddy's other presents was an activity cube, which is just a giant wooden block that has different things to do on each side. It was Calvin approved - he helped us do baby testing on it before we wrapped it to make sure Maddy would like it. Calvin's showing her all the different activities. Ok, so not really, but at least he's not fighting her for it. That's progress!
As we were wrapping up, Than, Michael and Van came by to say hi. Are those matching sweaters?


Group picture time! (Me, Calvin, Phil, Tam, Maddy, Mandy, Mom, Than, Michael and Van)

Later that evening Phil's family started to filter in. Different house this year, but still LOTS of food!

Everyone barely fit around the dining room table. I guess we're going to need a second table for next year...
Even Calvin joined in with the eating, although it was getting past his bedtime. I wonder what he's thinking about...
You could definitely tell he was getting tired though. And apparently the adults were talking too loud...I'm not sure who taught him to do this...


As usual, with Calvin being the only kid on Phil's side of the family he cleaned out this year in presents. There were 2 big presents. The first was a chalkboard/drawing board from his great-Aunt. We'll keep this packed up until he's a bit older - no chalk or crayons for this guy yet.
The other big present was a battery powered Mater from Phil's cousin, Kevin. Calvin can set inside and just push a button and Mater will drive around. It provided a lot of entertainment for the rest of the night.


Calvin was a little unsure at first, but I think he enjoyed it. He even got a little Dare Devil on us and attempted to drive while standing on the seat like some kind of stunt man. Phil was laughing so hard the camera is shaking.

We had a couple of desserts after Calvin went to bed. One of them was a chocolate peppermint cheesecake that Phil's sister, Winnie, made. It was actually pretty good.